Feeding The Social Media Beast

I had plans on going batshit crazy over the infamous “It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes” comment that Mr. Newton decided to spout during his press conference Wednesday. But then I remembered a column written by David von Drehle in the Washington Post that I read on Tuesday. It was titled “Americans are addicted to outrage”. He started with these lines:

Addiction compels you to chase a high that only makes you feel worse; it reduces you to a lesser version of yourself. And you can’t stop because deep down you don’t really want to change.

Too many Americans are controversy junkies.

Reading through the numerous Facebook posts and Twitter entries, seeing the videos posted on YouTube, and turning on the news stations and everyone covering this story, it made me realize that being incendiary was not the way.

No need to feed the beast anymore.

Face it, we’re addicted to seeing people say dumb stuff. A lot of us go to the Internet looking for the next public figure to have a brain fart or a verbal poop storm just to watch the vitriol and venom spew from the masses. Many others can’t wait to jump in themselves with Twitter and Facebook rants along with video monologues just to show how “bad” these public figures are.

Was Cam Newton wrong? Absolutely. How he responded to Jourdan Rodrigue of the Charlotte Observer was out of line (You can add whatever else you choose. It would still apply.).

But I watched people and groups (I’m looking at you, Dannon.) tried to jump all over this to make themselves look holier-than-thou with their public statements. Back in the day, that would be called “brown nosing”.

Then again, image is everything.

Cam made his apology and maybe the world will go back to normal. (Who am I kidding?) He will surely hear the boo birds in full force Sunday in Detroit when the Panthers play the Lions. But what about the rest of us? Are we still going to be posting and tweeting about him?

Nope. Twitter’s now after Rodrigue herself over racist tweets she sent out five years ago. Now she’s on the apology tour as the vitriol and venom turn her way.